


Astounding X-Men, vol. 1 #005: Enter the X-Men!

by Murf1307



Series: Astounding X-Men! [6]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Cerebro, Gen, Implied Het, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 01:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7737394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cerebro is rebuilt in the mansion basement, and the first mutant they find is far from friendly.  Meanwhile, Angel struggles with Moira’s impending exit from the team, and how lost she feels in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Astounding X-Men, vol. 1 #005: Enter the X-Men!

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about missing last week! I had to prep for a trip to California, and a lot of my fan stuff had to fall through the cracks. We're back on track, though, and issue #006 will be dropping on the 24th!

Angel hefts the metal plate into place up toward the top of the sphere.  Maybe she bangs it too hard into place, but as her ears ring, she can't really bring herself to care.

There's a lot of things, these days, that she can't bring herself to care about.  But the issue of the day is, surprisingly, _Moira_.

Moira MacTaggert, CIA agent and token human inhabitant of the Xavier Mansion.  The one person, besides Darwin, that Angel knows she can at least sort of trust.  The only other woman in the house.

Who is, apparently, _leaving_ , according to Sean, who seems just as torn up about it as Angel won't admit to being.

She's a little more vicious with the soldering iron than she needs to be, but she's angry.

Moira's _leaving._   Leaving.

It's not _fair._

Down below her, she hears Charles make a pleased noise, and she almost snarls.  She looks down, though, and sure enough, there's Moira.

Traitor.

Angel stays aloft, furiously not watching the two of them talk.  At least she's not _jealous_ , she allows.  That would only make this worse.  If Moira's really leaving, then she and Xavier deserve each other.

Charles wheels out of the unfinished room, presumably to give them some space.

Ugh.

Moira stays, and looks up at her.  

Angel flutters down, taking the soldering goggles off and putting the iron down on the unfinished console.  "So a little bird told me you're leaving."

Moira sighs.  "You know I have to go.  I'm pushing it with my superiors as it is."

"I don't care."

"If I stay too long, they'll try and trace me.  What happens if they --"

"I.  don't.  care."  Angel has half a mind to walk out.  But the rest of her wants Moira to see how upset she is, how much it hurts her that Moira's going to _leave them_.

Moira shifts.  "I know this isn't the best thing," she says, quietly.

Angel eyes her, warily.

"But I can't risk the CIA finding out where all of you have gone.   _Especially_  you."

Right, because _she'd_  been working for Shaw.   _She's_  the single biggest threat to the safety of this group of people.

As usual.  

"Angel.  I'm sorry.  I really am.  But --"

"You're just gonna fucking leave me here with a bunch of fucking _men_ ," Angel growls.  "And you know how many of those men I can actually, for-sure trust?  Darwin.  That's it.  The others don't get the benefit of the doubt yet."  She's pissed.  She's furious.  She _hates men._   She doesn't want to live alone with five of them.

Moira inhales a little sharply and takes Angel's shoulders in her hands, very gently.  "I -- if you're scared for your safety, here..."

"Sure as hell I am," she said, bitterly. 

"Then you can leave with me.  I don't know how, but I'll hide you.  Make sure the CIA doesn't know what you are, get you a new identity, things like that -- "

"Don't be fucking stupid, Moira."  She pulls away from Moira's touch.  "They'll get it out of you, one way or another.  They're not gonna care about us.  They'll use us and throw us out.  You work for the government, you gotta know that."

She stalks out of the room, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes.

 

* * *

 

Cerebro is finished the next day.  Angel has soldering burns on her hands that are entirely her own fault -- being as angry as she is didn't lend well to being careful with the soldering iron she'd been using to put plates up.

But it's done now, and if she's still angry, well, she at least has reason to be.  

The whole group of them is gathered, now, on the platform, and there's a sense of urgency -- at least, coming from Charles, anyway.  Angel knows who it's for, and she tries not to care.

At least she and Raven are _both_  traitors now.

There's a beat of quiet, and then Charles lifts the helmet and puts it on.  Another exhale, and then --

The room seems to expand, the and fills with a cloud of lights, pinpricks in red and blue.  Angel inhales sharply; it's almost in unison with everyone else.

Charles is the first to exhale, and the spinning cloud of lights shifts, and seems to zoom into one light, which expands and becomes visible as Erik Lehnsherr, asleep somewhere.  Angel twinges with almost-sympathy; Charles and Erik clearly had something going before it all went wrong.

Moira, though, is a godsend, even though Angel's mad at her.  She gently shoves Charles's shoulder, which seems to bring him back to himself.

"Right," he says, and then the cloud becomes what it had been before, a glittering glow of lights.   _Minds,_  Angel finally _really_ realizes.   _Every single mind on the planet._

It's kind of incredible.  And she had a part in it.

The red lights -- mutants, she presumes, because Erik's light was red, too -- are scattered far more thinly than the blue lights, but there are...there are _so many_  of them.

"Holy shit," Alex breathes, lowly.

Slowly, Charles zooms in again, slower this time, and focused on New York.  There's a scattering of red lights, but Charles focuses on one.

A man, clearly a strongman type, wrestling in a ring.

Angel looks at Darwin, who shrugs a little.

Charles nods.  "I think it might do us some good to speak to this man."

The lights slowly fade out.

"An' why's that?" Sean asks.

"Most of the others are children.  I don't want to start taking in children until we're ready for that."  Charles gives them a kindly smile.

Angel isn't sure why, but she's never trusted him less than she does in this moment.

"So you want to see if he'll be one of us?" Darwin asks.

"Yes."

Darwin nods.  "I'll head down to the city, then.  See if he's interested."

"I'm goin' with you," Alex says, immediately.

Angel only barely doesn't snicker.  It's kind of cute, the way Alex has seemingly turned into Darwin's guard dog since the compound.

Darwin just nods, and she kind of has to roll her eyes at that.  Somehow, the feeling, whatever it is between Alex and Darwin, is mutual.  She supposes there's no accounting for taste on Darwin's end.

"I'll go with you two, in case you need to get out fast."  Or, well, one at a time, anyway.

Darwin nods at her.  "All right, we've got a team.  Let's head out, before we lose this guy."

It's then that Angel realizes the unsaid -- that if they don't get to him, Erik's people just might.

And that's a little chilling.

 

* * *

 

The guy had _beaten_  Darwin. 

Darwin isn't hurt, of course, as they make their way back to the school.  Darwin's always fine, but a man like Darwin doesn't _lose_  fights.  Not with the way his mutation works.

"I just couldn't land at hit, even when I should have got him.  It's like my hand hit some kinda force field."  Darwin sighs.  "We're gonna have to just leave him be, I guess, and hope he's as welcoming to Erik's people as he was to us."

"Yeah," Alex agrees, sighing as well.  He's practically glued to Darwin's side, and Angel thinks maybe the kid needs therapy.

But then, Darwin almost died in front of him that night.

The surge of guilt filters through her.  It had been her fault really, and she knows that.  Darwin and Alex had fought Shaw because of _her_ , and that puts Darwin's near death on her hands, but she doesn't know how to bring it up.

Maybe after all this with Unus the Untouchable blew over, she'd talk to Darwin about it.

They step into the house, and Hank's loitering in the front hall.

"So he didn't want to come here, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah, no."  Darwin shrugs.  "He actually tried to fight me.  And, uh, actually won."

"Really?" Hank's eyebrows, such as they are, nearly move off of his head.

Darwin nods.  "Couldn't land a hit.  He's got some sorta force field an inch from his body."

"That's...troubling.  Do you think he's likely to join up with Erik?"

"Dunno.  Hope not."

Angel hopes not, as well.  Because really, the deck would be stacked against them, there.

Hank nods.  "Well, I suppose the three of you should go talk to Charles.  I'll be in my lab."

With that, he walks away.

 

* * *

 

Angel had taken to hanging out in the nest during the day, when she wasn't with Moira -- after all, Alex and Darwin can make anybody feel like a third wheel, and she's pretty sure Sean has designs on Hank.  

So that leaves her mostly on her own, on those days that Charles needs Moira, because apparently he'd never functioned without a woman to help take care of him.

_Men_.

Okay, maybe that's not exactly fair, given that Charles had just been through some significant shit, and that isn't gonna go away.  But it isn't like he couldn't learn to cook for himself, or do laundry, even with things as they were.

She watches TV, because there really wasn't much else to do.  

She isn't _surprised_  by the breaking news bulletin, when she sees Unus the Untouchable escaping a bank with an overflowing sack of money, bullets bouncing off him harmlessly.

Looks like it's finally time for the 'X-Men' to do something.

And really, 'X-Men'?  There are so many things wrong with that name, but she doesn't care enough to point them out.

She gets up, and heads out to go find Darwin.

He and Alex are down in the bunker, training.  Breathless and laughing, because they have to be an absolute cliche about the thing they have going.

She clears her throat.  "Darwin," she calls over.

Darwin disengages, and turns to her, and Alex has the common decency to blush at least.  "What is it?"

"That Unus guy just robbed a bank."

He exhales.  "Well, I guess that's our cue, huh?"

"Looks like."

 

* * *

 

Angel really hates fighting.  She hates the way it gets her breathing hard, gets her heart-rate up, and _really_  hates how much it reminds her of Cuba and everything she’s done wrong. 

Admittedly, there’s five of them, and only one Unus, but apparently one Unus is enough to keep them all busy.

She catches Alex when Unus flings him back, because Alex is a _dumbass_  whose first response to Unus throttling Darwin is to apparently forget that Darwin is unkillable and to try fighting Unus to ‘rescue’ him.

“Alex.  He’s gonna be fine,” she reminds him, and he rolls his eyes.

She may not trust the kid, but she’s starting to like him.

Sean’s doing okay — his screams at least piss Unus off when Sean flies by and lets one rip right in his ear.

And then Hank pulls out something that looks very much like a missile gun, which, _where the $%@# did he get that?_

It throws everyone for a loop, and Darwin’s eyes widen as he seems to figure out something nobody else has, and melts out of Unus’s grip and onto the ground before bolting to the sidewalk, dragging Alex with him.

Angel, on instinct, pops up to drag Sean out of the way, too, though they wind up tumbling into an alley because he flails too much.  She looks up to see Hank fire the weapon, which, apparently, is some kind of _laser gun_ , because a blue beam slams into Unus, actually hitting him, though it doesn’t seem to do anything else.

Until Angel notices that Unus is suddenly standing about six inches off the ground.

“I’d venture that you can’t eat like this,” Hank calls over to Unus, oddly conversational about the whole thing.  “So if you’d prefer not to starve to death, I think it’d be a good idea for you not to rob any more banks."

Darwin stands up to go over to Hank, turning toward Unus and adding, “Because we’ll be here.  We’re the X-Men, and we’ll be here."

Unus looks like he’s about to cry, from what Angel can see, and she smirks.

As much as she hates fighting, and hates the name ‘X-Men,’ this is a damn good feeling.

 

* * *

 

She knows something’s wrong as soon as they all pile out of the car and drag themselves into the mansion.  Everyone except Hank and Darwin is a little bruised from the fight, and she just wants to rest.  

But Charles is waiting for them, because _of course_  he is.

And he looks…thoroughly unhappy.

“We won,” Angel says, as if to spite him.  Because really, today’s supposed to be _good._

“I know,” he says, nodding, still looking grave.

His eyes are kind, pitying, when they meet hers, and she hates him for it.  The reason hits her right before the words drop out of his mouth:

“Moira has left us."


End file.
